Wilbur ross. This runs a half hour. We thank all of you for joining us today. We know how busy your schedules are and how difficult it is to get a group of this caliber together at the same time. Your attendance today demonstrates a clear commitment across the administration to implement a strategy to improve the endangered species act process for pesticides. Sks this bill tak esteemed group with engaging with stakeholders and others in a transparent manner. We are committed to maintaining that type of process. I now and very privileged to introduce the honorable epa administrator, andrew wheeler. Hasnistrator wheeler provided strong leadership to all of us at the age of and is deeply agency and is deeply committed to the issues the working group will assess. Administrator wheeler . Administrator wheeler thank you all for joining us on the important day, the 75th anniversary of dday. We honor the allied forces who stormed the beaches and helped to free a continent. We honor our world w
Interagency working group. Im alexandra dunn, administrator for chemicals and pesticides that epa. We are pleased to have this group continue the good work that began early in the administration and thank you for joining us today. We know how busy your schedules are and how difficult it is to get a group of this caliber together at the same time. Your attendance today demonstrates a clear commitment across the administration to implement a strategy to improve the endangered species act consultation process for pesticides. The farm bill passed this esteemed group, with various stakeholders, nongovernment organizations and others in a transparent manner and we are committed to maintaining that type of process. I now am privileged to introduce the honorable epa administrator andrew wheeler. Administrator wheeler has provided strong leadership to all of us here at the agency and is deeply committed to the issues the working group will assess. Administrator wheeler. Good morning and thank y
Familiar faces are enough to win. I will let you follow up on that. , we have very different characteristics. We have gone through a phase last election where republicans had many more seats that they could challenge. And a date addition to the in addition to the number of seats, republicans did very well last election picking up extremely red states that had democratic senators. There were six states that were rock red republican states and they had open seats. Republicans picked up all of them, plus North Carolina and if you swing states as well. Those of the prompt those are the prime targets than a world that is well aligned for the republicans are Holding Republican seats and democrats are Holding Democrat seats. What does this election look like . 24 big numbers are, republicans of four election, while there are only 10 democrats of your seats. And they just looking ahead, if in thek at 2018, and is opposite direction with only eight republicans and 23 or if 25 count the independ
But also to the american people. Secondly, productivity. Productivity is critically important to us. We measure value units, which is a common measurement in the medical industry. It is a measure of productivity. Our productivity is up 8 over the last year, versus a budget increase of 2. 8 . I am asking for ways to improve our productivity every day. There is no question that demand is increasing for our services. I do not feel capable of going to congress and asking for more money, unless i can show them that we are trying to save money. If you look at my testimony over the last year, what you see is i told congress that we had 10 million square feet of unused space. Unfortunately, it is all in somebodys congressional district. If we could close that space, that would save the v. A. And the american taxpayer 25,000 per year. Please look at my testimony. 10 million square feet, 25 million a year. We are eager to work with members of congress to close that space. And we are going to hav
These options today. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Let me start was in questions. Many factors contributed to the failure of the coops. Lower than higher expected enrollments, restrictions on investors, risk adjustment formulas, lots of those. Let me start off. What are the top reasons the coop failed in your state . Thank you for your question. Our coop had challenges from inception, in that as the commissioner mentioned, going into a state without Provider Networks cause the company to have to lease those. There were a ministry of cost that were new to the startup, that any startup would have. But in 2014, we had disastrously low enrollment. Truly come at most, 1000 people signed up for the coop plan. Mostly because the rates were somewhat higher than the leader and the wellestablished companies in tennessee. Overcoming those challenges became extremely difficult. And is why we saw significant rate increases for 2015 and beyond because of the enrollees across the marke